The man in us agrees with that; the Christian in us says, "Forgive, let God do the judgment." But the passion for revenge has here its way and the guilty falls.

And now let Browning speak--Forgiveness is right and the vengeance-fury wrong.

The dead man has escaped, the living has not escaped the wrath of conscience; pity is all.
Take the cloak from his face, and at first Let the corpse do its worst! How he lies in his rights of a man! Death has done all death can.
And, absorbed in the new life he leads, He recks not, he heeds Nor his wrong nor my vengeance; both strike On his senses alike, And are lost in the solemn and strange Surprise of the change.
Ha, what avails death to erase His offence, my disgrace?
I would we were boys as of old In the field, by the fold: His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn Were so easily borne! I stand here now, he lies in his place; Cover the face.
Again, there are few studies in literature of contempt, hatred and revenge more sustained and subtle than Browning's poem entitled _A Forgiveness_; and the title marks how, though the justice of revenge was accomplished on the woman, yet that pity, even love for her, accompanied and followed the revenge.

Our natural revolt against the cold-blooded work of hatred is modified, when we see the man's heart and the woman's soul, into pity for their fate.

The man tells his story to a monk in the confessional, who has been the lover of his wife.